Today's much anticipated lecture will be on CCS (carbon capture and storage) from Stuart Haszeldine, one of the world's foremost experts on CCS technology and implementation, right here from the University of Edinburgh. Stuart's been in the newspaper quite a few times, most recently for his comments regarding the 30 megawatt pilot CCS powerplant in Germany.
I'm not an engineer or scientist, so I'll do my best to explain the technology. My main interest is the economics and policy-making side of CCS, especially how feasible it is to make a real dent in the climate problem. CCS is a relatively unknown quantity AT SCALE, and requires billions of dollars for further pilot programs. The real question is whether CCS is cost effective at scale over other low carbon solutions i.e. renewables, some of which are already mature technologies and can be implemented immediately today.
So in a sentence, CCS is the capturing of CO2 from coal-fired powerplants through various methods, and then storing the CO2 underground for example in depleted oil fields so that the CO2 is not emitted into the atmosphere causing global warming. It is being heralded as a potential silver-bullet in the fight against climate change and politicians are pinning their hopes on it because it could kill 2 birds with one stone - keep the lucrative and powerful coal industry going and also tackle climate change at the same time. Are these hopes false?
First let's understand the technology. There are 3 main competing technologies for separating the CO2. Firstly there is oxyfuel, which "burns the lignite in air from which nitrogen has been removed. Combustion in the resulting oxygen-rich atmosphere produces a waste stream of carbon dioxide and water vapor, three-quarters of which is recycled back into the boiler. By repeating this process it is possible to greatly concentrate the carbon dioxide. After particles and sulfur have been removed, and water vapor has been condensed out, the waste gas can be 98 percent carbon dioxide". The CO2 is then cooled down to -28 degrees celcius and liquified and stored in suitable geogrpahic formations at least 3km underground.
The other two technologies. Another "uses a scrubbing process to try to capture carbon dioxide in the flue gases emitted after coal has been burned in a conventional power plant". Finally there is a third method which "involves gasifying the coal, creating hydrogen for generating electricity and carbon monoxide, from which carbon dioxide can be formed and separated".
There are up to a dozen pilot programs all around the world e.g. in the UK, Norway and the US testing these technologies, at varying degrees or progress. I'm sure Stuart will give an update on the status of these.
So contrary to many people's views that CCS technology is "unproven", this is simply false. The technology has been shown to work. The main stumbling blocks of CCS are NOT the science, but the logistics and the high costs of implementation. To summarize:
1) the extra cost of capturing and storing carbon has been estimated at USD50-90 per tonne according to various reports;
2) legal issues regarding ownership of the CO2 after it has been separated. Companies will not want to be liable for leakage of CO2 back into the atmosphere. Liquified CO2 may pass through countries or be stored in international waters and under the territory of another country;
3) extensive infrastucture of deep underground pipelines will need to be built to transport potentially billions of tonnes of liquidified CO2.
4) Who will pay if the CO2 accidently or eventually seeps back up and is released back into the atmosphere?
The retro-fitting of commercial power plants with CCS and the building of new gigawatt CCS power plants along with required complementary infrastructure will run into hundred of billions of dollars. Who is going to pay for all that? What's in it for them to pay for it? If economic incentives cannot be found for the market then government programs need to fit the bill. Are western governments likely to fund all of this, especially in developing countries such as China and India where it's most needed? Only the most extreme optimist would say yes. What is clear is that CCS is going nowhere without active and smart government support, as concluded by Stanford University in its comparion of CCS with the development of the US nuclear-power industry, the US SO2- scrubber industry, and the global LNG industry.
But, enough about the costs. Let's think about the potential benefits of CCS and how much it could contribute to tackling climate change ASSUMING CCS is performing at commercial scale. Will that makes us feel better? Not necessarily so.
The most illuminating work on the potential and economics of CCS I have seen is by David Victor, again of Stanford University. Based on this research, it is estimated that if the US is to stabilise emissions and to eventually decrease emissions from 1990 levels, commercial scale CCS plants will need to inject 350 million tonnes of CO2 per year underground by 2030. This is for the US only. Now, if ALL of the current CCS pilot projects, and future possible projects under plan and speculative future projects around the WORLD are all run and assumed to be capturing CO2 today at full capacity, by the year 2025 they will combine to capture 100 million tonnes of CO2 per year. This world effort will not even be enough to stablise US emissions. The point is that at current pace we are deluded if we think CCS is any silver-bullet, even if it works at commercial scale. Not only does CCS need to work at commercial scale, it needs to be widespread and become a "norm" of the coal industry around the world to have any chance of making serious inroads on climate change. You can decide whether CCS is worth it.
For those interested, Dr. Victor's informative presentation on coal, CCS and renewable energy can be seen below:
I'm not an engineer or scientist, so I'll do my best to explain the technology. My main interest is the economics and policy-making side of CCS, especially how feasible it is to make a real dent in the climate problem. CCS is a relatively unknown quantity AT SCALE, and requires billions of dollars for further pilot programs. The real question is whether CCS is cost effective at scale over other low carbon solutions i.e. renewables, some of which are already mature technologies and can be implemented immediately today.
So in a sentence, CCS is the capturing of CO2 from coal-fired powerplants through various methods, and then storing the CO2 underground for example in depleted oil fields so that the CO2 is not emitted into the atmosphere causing global warming. It is being heralded as a potential silver-bullet in the fight against climate change and politicians are pinning their hopes on it because it could kill 2 birds with one stone - keep the lucrative and powerful coal industry going and also tackle climate change at the same time. Are these hopes false?
First let's understand the technology. There are 3 main competing technologies for separating the CO2. Firstly there is oxyfuel, which "burns the lignite in air from which nitrogen has been removed. Combustion in the resulting oxygen-rich atmosphere produces a waste stream of carbon dioxide and water vapor, three-quarters of which is recycled back into the boiler. By repeating this process it is possible to greatly concentrate the carbon dioxide. After particles and sulfur have been removed, and water vapor has been condensed out, the waste gas can be 98 percent carbon dioxide". The CO2 is then cooled down to -28 degrees celcius and liquified and stored in suitable geogrpahic formations at least 3km underground.
The other two technologies. Another "uses a scrubbing process to try to capture carbon dioxide in the flue gases emitted after coal has been burned in a conventional power plant". Finally there is a third method which "involves gasifying the coal, creating hydrogen for generating electricity and carbon monoxide, from which carbon dioxide can be formed and separated".
There are up to a dozen pilot programs all around the world e.g. in the UK, Norway and the US testing these technologies, at varying degrees or progress. I'm sure Stuart will give an update on the status of these.
So contrary to many people's views that CCS technology is "unproven", this is simply false. The technology has been shown to work. The main stumbling blocks of CCS are NOT the science, but the logistics and the high costs of implementation. To summarize:
1) the extra cost of capturing and storing carbon has been estimated at USD50-90 per tonne according to various reports;
2) legal issues regarding ownership of the CO2 after it has been separated. Companies will not want to be liable for leakage of CO2 back into the atmosphere. Liquified CO2 may pass through countries or be stored in international waters and under the territory of another country;
3) extensive infrastucture of deep underground pipelines will need to be built to transport potentially billions of tonnes of liquidified CO2.
4) Who will pay if the CO2 accidently or eventually seeps back up and is released back into the atmosphere?
The retro-fitting of commercial power plants with CCS and the building of new gigawatt CCS power plants along with required complementary infrastructure will run into hundred of billions of dollars. Who is going to pay for all that? What's in it for them to pay for it? If economic incentives cannot be found for the market then government programs need to fit the bill. Are western governments likely to fund all of this, especially in developing countries such as China and India where it's most needed? Only the most extreme optimist would say yes. What is clear is that CCS is going nowhere without active and smart government support, as concluded by Stanford University in its comparion of CCS with the development of the US nuclear-power industry, the US SO2- scrubber industry, and the global LNG industry.
But, enough about the costs. Let's think about the potential benefits of CCS and how much it could contribute to tackling climate change ASSUMING CCS is performing at commercial scale. Will that makes us feel better? Not necessarily so.
The most illuminating work on the potential and economics of CCS I have seen is by David Victor, again of Stanford University. Based on this research, it is estimated that if the US is to stabilise emissions and to eventually decrease emissions from 1990 levels, commercial scale CCS plants will need to inject 350 million tonnes of CO2 per year underground by 2030. This is for the US only. Now, if ALL of the current CCS pilot projects, and future possible projects under plan and speculative future projects around the WORLD are all run and assumed to be capturing CO2 today at full capacity, by the year 2025 they will combine to capture 100 million tonnes of CO2 per year. This world effort will not even be enough to stablise US emissions. The point is that at current pace we are deluded if we think CCS is any silver-bullet, even if it works at commercial scale. Not only does CCS need to work at commercial scale, it needs to be widespread and become a "norm" of the coal industry around the world to have any chance of making serious inroads on climate change. You can decide whether CCS is worth it.
For those interested, Dr. Victor's informative presentation on coal, CCS and renewable energy can be seen below:
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